"Have you met the cretins we have in Westminster? Do you think we can be worse than that?" --- Nigel Farage

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Tuesday, 9 June 2009

Scottish banking disaster: 1,500 innocent bystanders wiped out

If you are one of the 1,500 people who stand to lose their jobs because Lloyds Banking Group is to close all 164 branches of Cheltenham & Gloucester, you would undoubtedly be pretty pissed off right now.

After all, when the "merger" with HBOS was announced it was pretty clear that the LLoyds businesses were pretty robust and the mortgage book was reasonably sound, although not perfect. One would have thought that any job losses would have fallen on the other side of the fence.

Moreover, when the Prime Minister waved the merger through all the normal anti-monopoly processes, it would seem that the bank and its employees were getting a free ride.

Not so, beause what Brown and his lackey Victor Blank forgot to mention was that the EU also has a say in these matters and they don't look to kindly on the notion that the average British High Street should be full of Lloyds Bank operations selling mortgages.

I don't really see the problem with that. If Lloyds wanted multiple operaions selling against each other I am not to bothered. They don't have a monopoly on High Street sites. There are plenty of empty storefronts in most British towns, and more outlets will generally mean more choice not less.

No doubt the reality is that Lloyds management see the excess capacity as ripe for cost saving, but ne can't help seeling sorry for all the diligent C&G workers who will lose their jobs as a result of an exercise to bail out another incompetently run Scottish bank.

After nearly 25 years running SME's in various sectors (service, construction and creative) I felt I had good grasp of what makes the wheels go round in an economy. Now I realise I have been deluded all this time because it appears to me we have no wheels on our economy at all, nice body work, engine, interior and all, just no bloody wheels.

If there is no real money left in the economy (All QE and debt) then the only way to make money is to spend less, ergo no wheels.

Good question Anonymous, and thanks for stopping by because you seem to be all over the blogosphere.

Santander have said that they will rebrand all the Abbey, B&B and Alliance & Leicester branches to the Santander brand. The have also said that they had no plans to close any B&B branches.

On the other hand they have also said they are looking for £80m annual savings from the larger group and all the B&B branches are leasehold properties, so don't be surprised if some of them close when their leases come to an end.

About Me

Alex is an experienced investment banker working in London's Docklands. He is obsessed with personal status, with his work coming second and his family a distant third. His commitment to status requires him to have all of the latest professional gadgets, including an iPad, a BlackBerry and a 4G mobile phone. Alex usually works for Rupert Sterling at Megabank, but has, in the past, worked for Mr Hardcastle as his Head of Corporate Strategy.

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